Determinist thought with its sui generis view on life, nature and being as a whole is a point of view that could be observed
in many different cultures and beliefs. It was thanks to Greek thought that it ceased to be a cultural element and
transformed into a systematic cosmology. Schools such as Leucippos, then Democritos and Stoa attempted to integrate
the determinist philosophy into ontology and cosmology.
In the course of time, physics and metaphysics-based determinism approaches were introduced, and a wide spectrum has
emerged from genetics to behaviorism, from culture to psychology, from atomism to divinity. Determinism, whether
physical or metaphysical origin, ignores freedom of will and deny agency competence over human behavior. Due to this
feature, it is opposed by ethical theories, legal philosophies and religions. When the arguments for determinism are
possible to disprove logically and philosophically, this is not so easy when the claims base themselves on scientific base.
As the logical consequence of this novel fact, it is important to question the epistemological value of scientific knowledge
and critically analyze the data of experiments and clinical studies in terms of methodology when answering any
hypothesis such as neuro-biological, neuro-psychological, or neuro-theological argumentations. On the other hand, it is
necessary to reach alternative experiments on the same subject or to show that it is possible to interpret them in different
ways, as in the example of the Libet experiment.
The neurobiological determinism based on biological reductionism, emerged as the result of ignoring the ontological
difference of the mind, equating the mind with the brain, or defining mentality as an epiphenomenon of the brain. The
main divergence stems from the acceptance of materialist philosophy. Paradigms that reduce existence only to matter do
not take the metaphysical possibilities into account. In this case, although the problems called qualia or subjective
experience stand there unresolved, the claim is preserved. Although many new developments such as the discovery of the
entropy law, the big bang theory, and quantum physics have shaken the materialist philosophy, modern science resists
an epistemological revision. However, with the current epistemology, it does not seem possible to grasp both the universe
and the being as a whole. This is the most important reason why every attempt to understand the nature and spiritual
side of human beings fails despite numerous experiments on the brain.
However, the human brain is an organ that seems sophisticated and its secrets cannot be easily solved. Since there is not
enough information about the brain, there is not enough evidence to claim that the brain, and therefore the mind, are
part of the deterministic universe.
Increasing brain researches since the last quarter of the twentieth century has revealed that genes, neurons and
particularly brain chemistry claim much greater role than expected in human behavior. These results have been
instrumentalized by some researchers for a radical claim that free will is an illusion, while by others it has led to the
acceptance of will as less important over actions than was thought. Both ideas adopted a model of biological determinism
in which freedom of will was ignored. Hypotheses based on controversial interpretations of various experiments raised
concerns about religious, moral, and legal responsibility. Although man cannot be thought of as a non-free being from the
point of view of common sense, the smog screen over the truth would not be lifted unless the scientific data in question
had a correct interpretation. At first glance, it seems unreasonable to discuss universal determinism in the quantum
universe. Nevertheless, the claim that strong causality prevails in the material world, including consciousness, remains in
place. Therefore, firstly criticizing determinism and then examining biological determinism will help to fix the conceptual
framework. This article aims to explain why genetics and neurobiology, while acknowledging their importance in the
realization of behavior, can’t completely abolish moral agency.
Some hypotheses attribute consciousness and free will to the physico-shimic structure of the brain, the random activity
of neurons, or the ability to automatically transform inputs into outputs with the advantage of genetic information. This
is the most sensitive and important point of being human; it attacks free will. Paradoxically, while global civilization of
our time promises infinite freedom to human beings the science of the same age tries to prove that it is not free.